This invention relates generally to electric guitar pickups and more particularly to such pickups that have a single coil.
As a rule there are two kinds of pickups for guitars: single-coil and compound coil pickups. Usually the different types of pickups have characteristic and therefore different designs which have established themselves as standard in the guitar industry.
The single-coil pickup typically not only transfers a response to the oscillation of the strings but also undesirable interferences such as those from transformers, which results in a humming noise. The compound coil pickup known as a humbucking pickup (see FIG. 7) eliminates external hum interference by using two parallel coils with opposite winding directions and magnetization.
The invention of the compound, humbucking coil pickup has made it possible to suppress hum interference. However, this system of parallel coil design (vertical or horizontal) may be disadvantageous in that in addition to suppressing humming noise, desirable signals can be suppressed and sound volume lost.
In some instances, a guitar player may want the hum-suppressed tonality of a humbucking pickup, but at another time the guitar player may want the tonality of a single-coil pickup. One way to accommodate this is to physically change out the humbucking pickup for the single-coil pickup. To do this has required:
a) modifications to the instrument (drilling and milling work) or PA1 b) optical/aesthetic deficiencies on the instrument because the different types of pickups have not been interchangeable due to their different structures. There is thus the need for an improved single-coil pickup that can directly replace a humbucking pickup without having these shortcomings.